cubicweb-localperms 1.0.0

Summary

This cube allows definition of local permissions using a generic CWPermission entity type which you should use in your schema definition.

A CWPermission entity type:

• has a name and a label

• means groups linked to it through the ‘require_group’ relation have the <name> permission on entities linked through the ‘require_permission’ object relation.

To speed-up things, a ‘has_group_permission’ relation is automatically maintained, so ‘P require_group G, U in_group G’ is equivalent to ‘U has_group_permission P’.

Client cubes should explicitly add ‘X granted_permission CWPermission’ and ‘X require_permission CWPermission’ for each type that should have local permission, the first one being explicitly granted and the other automatically propagated. Hence possible subjects of granted_permission should be a subset of require_permission possible subjects.

You should then use require_permission in your schema security definition, since this is the one which is automatically propagated.

Example of configuration

class granted_permission(RelationDefinition):
    subject = 'Project'
    object = 'CWPermission'

class require_permission(RelationDefinition):
    subject = ('Project', 'Version')
    object = 'CWPermission'

class Project(EntityType):
    """a project, only visible to managers and users having the 'view' local permission
    """
    __permissions__ = {
       'read':   ('managers', ERQLExpression('X require_permission P, P name "view", '
                                             'U has_group_permission P'),),
       'update': ('managers', 'owners',),
       'delete': ('managers', ),
       'add':    ('managers', 'users',),)
       }

class Version(EntityType):
    """a version defines the content of a particular project's release"""
    __permissions__ = {
       'read':   ('managers', ERQLExpression('X require_permission P, P name "view", '
                                             'U has_group_permission P'),),
       'update': ('managers', 'owners',),
       'delete': ('managers', ),
       'add':    ('managers', 'users',),)
       }

class version_of(RelationDefinition):
    """link a version to its project. A version is necessarily linked to one and
    only one project.
    """
    __permissions__ = {
       'read':   ('managers', 'users',),
       'delete': ('managers', ),
       'add':    ('managers', RRQLExpression('O require_permission P, P name "manage",'
                                             'U has_group_permission P'),)
                   }
    subject = 'Version'
    object = 'Project'
    cardinality = '1*'

This configuration indicates that we’ve two distinct permissions (forthcoming CWPermission entities):

• one named ‘view’, which allows some users to view a particular project and its versions

• another named “manage” which provides rights to create new versions on a project

Now the idea is that managers will grant permission on projects, and those will then be propagated as configured. You will want to use sets in cubicweb_localperms.hooks to configure how permissions should be propagated when desired. In our example, put in your cube’s hooks.py something like:

from cubicweb_localperms import hooks
# relations where the "main" entity is the object. We could also
# have modified hooks.S_RELS for relations where the "main" entity
# is the subject
hooks.O_RELS.add('version_of')

The permission given to a project will be automatically added/removed as version are created / deleted.

Last but not least, when defining the entity class for Project, defines __permissions__ as below:

class Project(AnyEntity):
    __permissions__ = ('view', 'manage',)

So that when going on the ‘security’ view for a project (in ‘more actions’ sub-menu by default), you should be proposed an interface to configurate local permissions with a combo-box prefilled with proper permission names instead of a free text input, which greatly reduces the risk of error.

Also, you’ll find in cubicweb_localperms some functions to ease building of rql expression in your schema definition. Those written in above example could be written as below using those functions:

from cubicweb_localperms import xexpr, oexpr

class Project(EntityType):
    __permissions__ = {'read':   ('managers', xexpr('view'),),
                       'update': ('managers', 'owners',),
                       'delete': ('managers', ),
                       'add':    ('managers', 'users',),)
                       }

class Version(EntityType):
    __permissions__ = {'read':   ('managers', xexpr('view'),),
                       'update': ('managers', 'owners',),
                       'delete': ('managers', ),
                       'add':    ('managers', 'users',),)
                       }

class version_of(RelationDefinition):
    __permissions__ = {'read':   ('managers', 'users',),
                       'update': ('managers', 'owners',),
                       'delete': ('managers', ),
                       'add':    ('managers', oexpr('manage'),)
                      }